Ephesians 4:1-6 | “A Worthy Walk Is A Unified Walk”

Cut Off Toxic Family Members?

I read an article this week titled, “Why It’s Okay to Cut Toxic Family Members Out of Your Life.”  It said that we should “never compromise our mental, emotional or physical health for the sake of tolerating a toxic family member.”  The article defined a toxic family member as those who’re judgmental, who feed off of drama, who gaslight you (meaning that they deny saying something that they actually said – also known as lying), who only talks to you when they need something from you, and someone who flip-flops between positive and negative reinforcement. 

The article said, “If anyone in your family displays any of these symptoms of toxic behavior, they’re putting your mental health in jeopardy.”  Because toxic relationships can drain us emotionally and impact our mental well-being, we shouldn’t accept them as the status quo.  Alithia Asturrizaga, a clinical social worker, says that what we should get rid of our toxic relationships.  She says, “There are certain techniques that people can use to make these relationships more tolerable….However, in many cases, the best solution is to remove the toxic individual from your life completely…when situations deteriorate to the point of making it impossible to live a happy and liberated life, this course of action is usually the best.”

According to Asturrizaga, if a relationship disrupts my happiness or infringes upon my freedoms, then I need to cut off the relationship.  One wonders if this is the best way to handle conflict in a family?  I personally have been involved in cutting off a “toxic family member” from our family.  It didn’t lead to more happiness and freedom.  Instead, it created more tension and bitterness and pain and regret.  Thankfully, God moved in our family and restoration has happened. 

Of course there are times when wisdom demands that we not have the same level of relationship with a family member.  If there’s serious sin of any kind going on between family members, then distancing ourselves is good and right.  But having a knack for drama or being judgmental and manipulative don’t seem like good grounds for excommunicating someone from the family.  If you’re struggling through this right now, there’s help available.  We have trained biblical counselors in our church and there are several good counseling ministries I’d love to point you too if your family is facing this.  Healing is possible for those who seek help.    

  

Churches Must Not Be Like Many Families

Unnecessary division and bitterness, rather than unity and forgiveness, characterize too many families, and, unfortunately, characterizes many churches too.  Too many churches divide over petty, non-gospel, issues.  This sends the wrong message to the world.  Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13:34-35).  The world will know that we belong to Jesus by the way we embrace one another. 

The church must not be like so many modern families.  The church must place unity above personal happiness, love above personal freedom.  Loving unity around the truth of Jesus is proof that we belong to God.

Overview of Chapters 1-3

This is the Apostle Paul’s point in our text this morning.  Paul says in Ephesians 4:1-6 that unity in the church is one of the primary evidences that we’ve been called into God’s family.  Before we look at these verses, remember what Paul is doing in this letter.  In chapters 1-3, Paul describes the eternal purpose of God that’s being worked out in history.  Through Jesus’ death, God is making a new humanity, a new society.

This new society is called the church, and it’s no weak or antiquated religious non-profit organization.  The church is the “fullness of Christ who fills all in all” (1:23).  Jesus fills the universe with his rule and his control.  His body, the church, is the tangible expression of Jesus’ rule over all things.  The church is made up of Jews and Gentiles who were chosen by God to be his people before the earth was made (1:4).  It’s made up of all those who’ve had their sins washed away by the blood of Jesus (1:7), all those who carry the seal of the Holy Spirit, the down payment that guarantees their future inheritance in the kingdom of God (1:13-14).  The church proclaims to the powers of hell that “God is wise” (3:10).  The church is the fulfillment of the “eternal purpose” that God set forth in Christ (3:11).  In church has always been God’s goal.  The Father chose, the Son died for, and the Spirit is calling people from every nation to be part of a new society where peace and righteousness are established and where joy will never end.    

The church of Jesus Christ isn’t relegated to the fringes of a progressive society that will eventually fade into the twilight of history.  No, the church is the very center of what God is doing in the world.  To be in the church is the greatest privilege and the highest calling in the universe.  It’s a calling based on God’s grace, not our works (2:8-9).  But it’s a calling that comes with a command.  Those called by God into God’s church must reflect God’s character.  Those who belong to God must look like God.  This is the essence of the last three chapters of Ephesians.  In chapters 4-6, Paul turns from what God has done to what we must do.

As I said, in our text this morning (4:1-6), Paul says that the unity of the church is proof that she’s been called by God.  We can divide this text into three sections: our call (v. 1), our walk (v. 2), and our unity (vv. 3-6).

Our Call

Paul says in verse one that our lives must reflect our calling.  Paul reminds us that he’s a “prisoner for the Lord.”  He’s a prisoner of Christ and for Christ.  He’s bound to Christ and he’s bound for Christ.  The calling of God on his life brought him into suffering.  He might be reminding the Ephesians of his status as a prisoner to say, “This is the level of commitment that someone called into God’s family should be willing to endure.” 

J. D. Greear, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote a devotional this week called, “Eight Signs You’re a Lukewarm Christian.”  It was very convicting.  He says that, although we all go through periods of lukewarmness, one mark of a lukewarm Christian is that they’re “moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not do radical things themselves.”

Paul was no lukewarm Christian.  Paul was all in.  Even while in prison, he’s still writing and preaching and praying.  God’s call produced great commitment.  What about you?  What about us as a church?  Are we moved by stories but not moving ourselves to do great things for Christ?

Paul was a prisoner because of the calling of God.  What has the calling of God compelled us to do?  To be clear, the verse isn’t referring to our vocational calling.  The “calling to which you have been called” is God’s calling you into his family (1:3-6, 2:4-7).  If you’re in Christ, God chose you, Christ died for you, and the Holy Spirit called you out of the spiritual grave.  God’s call on our lives creates a willingness to live all in for Jesus Christ.

Our Walk

Secondly, our walk must be marked by a certain kind of character (v. 2).  In verse one, Paul urges us to “walk” in way worthy of our calling.  In verse two, he gives us five specifics on what that should look like: humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, and love.

Humility wasn’t seen as a virtue in the Greco-Roman world.  The word used here for humility referred to the hopeless attitude of a slave.  The word literally means “lowliness of mind.”  The servant or slave by necessity had a humble mind.  They knew who they were.  They knew their place.  This is the kind of mind that Jesus had and calls us to have (Phil. 2:5-7). 

Unity is where Paul is heading in the next verses, but he starts with humility because unity is impossible without humility.  Unless we lower ourselves before one another, we’ll never be able to live and work together for the sake of the gospel.  Unity is impossible until we recognize the intrinsic God-given worth in every person.  This is true in the church and in our nation.  We’ll continue to find it difficult to come up with solutions to the problems we face as a nation as long as we’re yelling at one another and assuming the worst of each other’s motives.  Harmony and peace happens in a nation when citizens across the political spectrum realize that the person they disagree with is an image bearer of God whose perspective is meant to sharpen our own. 

Our walk must also be with “gentleness,” or “meekness.”  This isn’t a synonym for weakness.  The word was sometimes used of domesticated animals.  The idea is “strength under control.”  It’s the ability of a strong personality to master themselves in order to serve others.  A gentle person isn’t weak.  They’re self-controlled.  They don’t assert their opinions or personal rights or preferences.  Rather, they use their strength to bless and encourage others.  Humility and gentleness, or lowliness and meekness, were found together in perfect balance in the Lord Jesus, who described himself as “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29). 

The next two character traits also go nicely together: “patience and bearing with one another.”  We should have patience towards people who aggravate or irritate or frustrate us because that’s how God in Christ has treated us.  How many times have we upset the Lord with our words, thoughts, or actions?  How many times has he lost his patience with us? 

“Bearing with one another” is closely related to patience.  We must “bear with,” or tolerate, one another.  Yes, this means that Christian brothers and sisters will get on our nerves.  Did your siblings ever get on your nerves?  One of the reasons we get annoyed by people is because we subtly assume that everyone should be like us, think like us, talk like us, and have our personality.  How prideful!  We’re much different than God, yet he has borne with us, patiently endured our quirks and even celebrates our uniqueness.  We may get on each other’s nerves at times, but we must bear with one another.

Love is the fifth and final quality that embraces the previous four.  These other things are only possible with love.  We won’t humble ourselves before one another or walk with gentleness and patience and bear with one another unless we love one another.  Love is the reason we can do these things.  Think of it, why do you stick with your family members even though they can be annoying and frustrating and sometimes judgmental or rude or immature?  Why do we only sever ties with a family member if an egregious offense has been committed?  Because we love them.  We love them, therefore we stick it out.  So it must be in the church of Jesus Christ.  We stick it out.  Yes, there are times when serious and unrepentant sin demands church discipline.  But even that is pursued out of love.  Peter says, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8). 

This is hard work and demands much prayer.  Most of the things we get upset about in church aren’t sin issues, but are rather the result of our preferences being offended or someone’s personality rubbing us the wrong way.  Just because someone doesn’t think like me or isn’t wired just like me doesn’t mean they’re in sin.  Love covers a multitude of sin, but it also covers a multitude of personality differences and personal preferences and quirky behaviors. 

A life that’s worthy of the calling of God is a life of humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, and love.  This is how God has acted toward us.  We should therefore act like this toward one another.

Our Unity

All of this is for the overarching purpose of unity (vv. 3-6).  The walk that is worthy of God’s call is a walk that results in unity.  The church (“you” in verse 1 is plural) should be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  The “bond of peace,” or “the peace that binds us” is what Christ died to create (2:14-15).  Every believer is given the Holy Spirit as soon as they believe the gospel (1:13).  The possession of the one Spirit is what unites us into one body.  We must, therefore, work hard to maintain what Jesus died for and what the Spirit has created in the church. 

Verses 4-6 is Paul’s summary of the theological reality that undergirds the church’s unity.  The basis of the church’s unity is the unity of God.  Notice the Trinitarian theme here, “one Spirit…one Lord…one God and Father of all.”  God is three in one, unity amidst diversity.  The church should reflect God in its unity, despite diversity.

He also says that there’s “one body.”  There’s one church.  This refers to what theologians call the invisible church, or all the people of God through all time in all places.  This one church has one Spirit and one hope.  The hope of the church isn’t political power but the coming kingdom of God (1:18).  There’s only one Lord of the church – Jesus Christ. 

There’s only one faith, only one gospel, only one message that makes people right with God.  It’s the message that God is holy and created all things and made us in his image only to see us rebel against him.  We therefore deserve his judgement, but in grace, he sent Jesus to die on the cross for our rebellion and give us new life through his resurrection.  Everyone who trusts in him and turns from their sin will be made right with God and brought into the family of God.  Everyone who rejects the gospel will not only not enjoy union with God and the unity of the church, they’ll also live in perpetual division between them and God.  They’ll live forever in hell separated from God and everyone and everything they know and love.

There’s only one baptism.  Those baptized into the church are the visible representatives of Jesus in the world.  And there’s only one Father who is totally sovereign over and in all of creation.  This truth is what our hope of unity is built on.

How Do We Maintain Unity?

The church has a God-given and indestructible unity, “the unity of the Spirit.”  The Spirit creates it and nothing can destroy it.  But in verse 3 we’re told we have to maintain this unity.  God is sovereignly upholding the unity of his church, and we have the responsibility to work and pray and be diligent to maintain that which God has created in the church.

What are some practical ways we can do this?  First, become a member of a local church.  Membership in the invisible church is affirmed by becoming a member in the visible church.  Second, commit yourself to your local church at all costs.  Give yourself sacrificially to your church through attendance and service and giving and prayer.  Do radical things for Christ in your local church.  Make it obvious to all that you’re not a lukewarm Christian through your radical commitment to the local church.  Third, pray for God to grow you in humility and patience and gentleness and bearing with other church members and love.  Fourth, be quick to forgive other Christians who sin against you, as Christ has forgiven you.  Fifth, don’t allow any gossip or slander to pass from your lips or across your ears without a gentle correction.  One of the deadliest things to a church’s unity is gossip.  Be humble and courageous enough to talk to people instead of about people.  Sixth, make every effort to enter into the pain and joy of other church members.  Nothing builds intimacy and unity faster than “weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice” (Rom. 12:15).  Seventh, commit yourself to grow in your understanding of God and the gospel.  True unity is built upon the truth of God, not a pastor’s personality or location or style of music or children’s programs or ethnic makeup of the congregation.  Unity that lasts is unity built on truth. 

Jesus Walked Worthy of God for Us

The Message paraphrases verse 4 like this, “We were called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so (we must) stay together.”  The church must not be like so many modern families.  The church must place unity above personal happiness, love above personal freedom.

The only reason we can walk worthy of God is because Jesus walked worthy of God for us.  He did for us what we could never do for ourselves.  Those who know him are called to live in a way that reflects him.  May his grace produce in us a life that’s worthy of the One who gave his life for us.